No reason why a council house should be for life

MENTION hereditary privilege and the first image that comes into your head is probably an aristocrat in a large country house.

HOME NOT YOUR OWN: A street of council houses in a Nottingham suburb []

But there is a larger group living on an inheritance and unlike the aristocracy this one costs taxpayers a fortune.

Astonishingly at a time of national housing crisis there are 90,000 council tenants living in subsidised homes not because their economic circumstances qualify them for social housing but because their parents once qualified many decades ago.

Between them, residents who have inherited council tenancies from their parents are costing us £300million in subsidies. This is in spite of the fact that many of them would be able to afford to buy or rent a home on the open market.

The figures, released by the Department for Communities and Local Government under the Freedom of Information Act, don’t even include the thousands who inherited council tenancies from their parents – and then exercised their right-to-buy at a discount. Many of these properties will have since been sold on at a huge profit. That so many council tenants enjoy subsidised housing regardless of their financial situation will come as a shock to people who pay a market rate to rent homes.

In London private tenants on average pay twice as much as council tenants. Private tenants have little security of tenure. Almost all tenancies in the private sector are Assured Shorthold Tenancies which run for an initial six or 12 months. After this, the tenant must either leave the property or renegotiate a new contract.

It is absurd that council tenants should get such a good deal and occupy subsidised homes regardless of their income. One fifth of council tenants earn more than the average wage. But it isn’t hard to wonder why this situation has been allowed to persist. Whenever a politician dares to question the rights of council house tenants he can expect a squeal of protest from charities and pressure groups accusing him of attacking the poor.

That is exactly what happened in August when David Cameron first proposed to end council house tenancies for life. You couldn’t imagine anything more reasonable than the Prime Minister’s words: “There is a question mark about whether, in future, should we be asking when you are given a council home, is it for a fixed period, because maybe in five or 10 years you will be doing a different job and be better paid and you won’t need that home, you will be able to go into the private sector.”

Yet it was enough to provoke howls of outrage from the likes of the housing charity Shelter, which accused him of “taking away the only bit of safety and security the poorest and most vulnerable in our society have”. The charity’s response shows a lack of understanding of how much council housing is actually used. According to an estimate last year by the Department for Communities and Local Government 200,000 council tenants are so needy that they in fact live elsewhere and illegally sublet the properties to third parties.

Council tenants can make vast profits from doing this. A flat for which the tenant pays £100 a week can be sublet for up to five times this figure. Far from subsidising a poor family, taxpayers are in fact subsidising a massive scam.

Many on the Left will never accept the need for greater control and policing of council tenancies because they have a romantic attachment to the notion of council housing. Nye Bevan, who was housing minister in Clement Attlee’s government, had the dream that one day everyone from lawyers and accountants to road-sweepers would live side by side in housing provided by the state. To this end, early council housing was designed to be available to whoever wanted it.

It was a dream, however, in which the British people rapidly decided they did not want to take part. Most people who could afford it shunned the idea of accepting a house from the council in favour of standing on their own two feet and buying a home or renting it privately. But 60 years later the rules governing the allocation of council housing have yet to catch up. Once you have been allocated a council house there is virtually nothing that a council can do to get you out of it.

You could be a millionaire and still have the right to remain living in your council house at a subsidised rent and to pass it on to your children for them to do the same – never mind that there are 1.8 million on the waiting list for social housing.

And yes, there are well-off people who choose to stay in council housing. Not all such housing is small flats in concrete tower blocks. A lot of early council housing was formed of large semi-detached houses in quarter- acre gardens. Until recently there were council tenants living in apartments in the walls of Ludlow Castle. Fortunately, it seems as if David Cameron has had the guts to ignore Shelter’s protests.

It is believed that today’s spending review will contain proposals to charge higher rents to council tenants who can afford them and that new tenancies will be restricted to five or 10 years, after which tenants may be asked to leave if their circumstances have improved. It will still mean that council tenants will continue to enjoy far better terms than private ones.

But for taxpayers who are paying to support “poor” people who are actually better off than themselves the changes will come with some relief.